{"id":1600,"date":"2015-06-05T18:59:47","date_gmt":"2015-06-05T17:59:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eyeplug.net\/magazine\/?p=1600"},"modified":"2011-04-08T10:28:24","modified_gmt":"2011-04-08T10:28:24","slug":"steve-ignorant-between-courses-at-the-last-supper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/steve-ignorant-between-courses-at-the-last-supper\/","title":{"rendered":"Steve Ignorant: Between Courses at the Last Supper"},"content":{"rendered":"

For Crass<\/strong> in general, and former frontman Steve Ignorant<\/strong> in particular, it\u2019s been all go just recently. Aside from the re-mastering of the band\u2019s landmark 1978 album Feeding of The Five Thousand, Steve had been on tour across the UK performing Crass\u2019 songs for a final time. Not content with that, he has written a memoir titled The Rest Is Propaganda (published by Southern). I caught up with him to see how he\u2019s bearing up amid this recent maelstrom of activity.<\/p>\n

Dick: We should begin by talking about the Last Supper gigs \u2013 you\u2019ve just completed the UK leg, from what I\u2019ve read it\u2019s all gone very well \u2013 what are your impressions of how they\u2019ve gone over ?
\n<\/strong>Steve: Absolutely superb. I\u2019ve just been overwhelmed by the response from the audiences. I didn\u2019t think that it was going to be like that, I thought there might be a bit of applause, but people have really travelled from far and wide to come and see it and I haven\u2019t seen a negative response yet on email, or Facebook, or whatever and the whole thing\u2019s just been totally overwhelming.
\n Have these gigs been a different experience from the Shepherd\u2019s Bush show a couple of years back?
\n<\/strong>Yeah, for a couple of reasons: When I did that, there was a whole load of controversy that popped up and stuff was being put on the Crass Forum that I made the mistake of reading and there was a bit of dissent from Penny Rimbaud as well, who didn\u2019t want me to use his material because it was a commercial venue, and it really undermined my confidence. So even though Penny came round and said, \u2018Of course you can do it with my blessing\u2019, because there\u2019d been such sort of spite and stuff, I was really tense and nervous the whole two days \u2013 even though the place was sold out. This time around I decided that people weren\u2019t going to pay all that money just to come along and slag me off, so they must be coming because they want to come and see it and enjoy it, so why don\u2019t I just relax a bit and enjoy it as well \u2013 which is what I\u2019ve been doing. Obviously, I still get stage fright, but the whole experience has just been fun.<\/p>\n

Which of the Crass material do you enjoy playing live the most these days?
\n<\/strong>All of it really, but \u2018Reality Whitewash\u2019 I like, and \u2018How Does It Feel\u2019 is a big favourite of mine, and of course \u2018Big A, Little A\u2019.<\/p>\n

I always got the sense with Crass that because the message was so strong, it raised the question, \u2018Am I supposed to be enjoying this\u2019. Was that the same from a performance point of view?
\n<\/strong>Yeah, absolutely. When we did Edinburgh the last time, it suddenly hit me that was going to be the last time I performed Crass songs live in Edinburgh and I suddenly realised that all the gigs we\u2019d done; Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, it was the last time we\u2019d ever be performing there. It hadn\u2019t hit me until then. The audience were singing along up there in Edinburgh, and I couldn\u2019t stop smiling. And I thought, \u2018Well, why not, why shouldn\u2019t I smile? Why not show the human face, because that\u2019s what it\u2019s meant to be about, and let\u2019s still have the same feeling about the songs \u2013 of course the words remain the same and the attitudes behind them \u2013 but this is why we\u2019re doing it, so why not?\u2019<\/p>\n

On the current tour, what\u2019s the nature of the crowds been like, are you getting many youngsters in?
\n<\/strong> A few, but on the whole it seems to be people in their 40s up to 50s coming along. I don\u2019t know what it\u2019s going to be like in Europe, it might be different over there.<\/p>\n

Do you find that there\u2019s much of an appetite from the young for the kind of deeply political issues that Crass\u2019 songs address?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019m not so sure anymore, because back in the day when Crass were going, what we always saw ourselves as was like a little information bureau, and the difference now is that because of the internet you can just Google it. I\u2019ve had this conversation with other people; just supposing that Crass started tomorrow, would we be able to exist. The way we did it in Crass was all sort of nailed together and held together with safety pins, but with this new technology it\u2019d be like, \u2018We\u2019re going to do this song about nuclear war or CND \u2013 aw no, I Googled that last night you don\u2019t need to tell me.\u2019<\/p>\n

For me, Crass represented the very epitome of the way in which music can be used to address issues, make people think, and drive protest. These days, there seems to be a complete absence of dissent among the music scene, to the extent that rebellion has been reduced to a series of stylised tropes \u2013 what are your thoughts about this?
\n<\/strong>I absolutely agree with you, because I always read the bloody paper \u2013 I think \u2018why do I do it\u2019 because I get really angry, I always read the pop pages \u2013 and I think the biggest form of rebellion I can see at the moment is wearing outrageous clothes, like Lady Gaga wearing a dress made out of meat. What\u2019s that a statement about? I don\u2019t get it. Maybe it\u2019s because I\u2019m in my 50s now, maybe I don\u2019t understand the youth anymore.<\/p>\n

I was talking to my mate\u2019s daughter a couple of weeks ago \u2013 she\u2019s 15, and I said to her, \u2018Look Alice, I do not understand young music anymore, can you explain it?\u2019 And she said, \u2018Well, we just like it because it sounds good.\u2019 So I said, \u2018Yeah, but there\u2019s no revolutionary statement behind it, is there?\u2019 And she went, \u2018No, it\u2019s just fun\u2019, and I thought, \u2018fair enough.\u2019 I said, \u2018What I don\u2019t get is that when I was young, if you were into skinhead music, you dressed like a skinhead, if you was into punk, you dressed like a punk.\u2019 So, you could tell what the person was into by looking at them and you don\u2019t get that anymore. Actually wearing the uniform of the music you liked, that in itself was a statement.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

I recently spoke to Mick Farren, and he observed that \u2018rock\u2019n\u2019roll has run its course and that music has run its course as the major agent for change, the major medium for rebellion\u2019 \u2013 is that something you would agree with?<\/strong>
\nYeah, I would. But I would also hope that something is going to come along soon.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Could you tell us a little about the makeup of the band that you\u2019ve put together for these dates?<\/strong>
\nWe\u2019ve got Beki Strong, she\u2019s from Sunderland and she\u2019s in a band called Loaded 44 \u2013 they\u2019re not very well known. Originally I was hoping to get Sadie, who I used at Shepherd\u2019s Bush, but she was unavailable, so originally we were planning to do the punk festival in Durham and I asked the promoters if they knew anyone local that could do it. They gave me a choice of three people and I watched Beki on YouTube and said, \u2018she\u2019s the one \u2013 she can do it.\u2019 And not only has she learned all the words but she\u2019s actually able to sound exactly like Eve Libertine.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s not easy to do…<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s really uncanny, sometimes she\u2019ll just pronounce something in a certain way and it\u2019s like \u2018ooh…my god!\u2019 Then I\u2019ve got Bob Butler, and I\u2019ll always work with Bob \u2013 he\u2019s just a rock steady bass player and he\u2019s so depreciating of himself. I was in Schwarzenegger with him, so he\u2019s an old, old friend. Giz Butt on lead guitar; he\u2019s been in the Prodigy and stuff like that, he\u2019s a demon bloody guitarist \u2013 he can be a little bit irritating, I\u2019ll give him that [laughs], but he\u2019s a spot on guitarist and he\u2019s managed to make his one guitar sound like two \u2013 which is a pretty good feat.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Does he play guitar in that odd, \u2018over the top of the neck\u2019 way?<\/strong>
\nNo… that was Andy Palmer on rhythm guitar just making a chundering noise. What Giz has done is taken aspects of that and weaved it into the actual guitar playing \u2013 it\u2019s really clever, the way he\u2019s done it. On drums I\u2019ve got Spikey Smith, who\u2019s been with Morrissey and Killing Joke \u2013 he\u2019s mucked about by them and he was recommended to me by Von, who was the original drummer I had and Spike is just a really brilliant drummer. We\u2019re working together really tight as a unit.<\/p>\n

I noticed that the gig flier promises a few surprises in the set \u2013 what sort of things have you been dropping in?<\/strong>
\nI think really that the surprises were that nobody expected us to do so many Eve Libertine songs and also the visuals \u2013 which I don\u2019t think anyone expected their own face to be flashed up on the wall while the band were playing.<\/p>\n

After the European leg of the tour, will you be keeping the group together?<\/strong>
\nYeah, we do Europe, we spend about ten days out there, then come back \u2013 I think we\u2019ve got about seven days off, then we fly out to Finland for four nights. [Voice from the background sets Steve straight] Oh… I\u2019ve got four weeks rest! Do that, then we come back and I\u2019ve got a couple of weeks off and then we do Belfast and Dublin. And that\u2019s it for this year.<\/p>\n

Have you considered the possibility of new material?<\/strong>
\nNo, because next year it looks like we\u2019re going to America and we might be going to Australia, I\u2019m not sure \u2013 there\u2019s all this stuff being talked about. But at some point, I\u2019m going to have to put a deadline to all of this, because the Last Supper can\u2019t go on forever. So it\u2019s going to end definitely next year at some point, but the last ever gig will be at Shepherd\u2019s Bush Empire … I\u2019d like to have done Wales, too \u2013 there\u2019s so many places I\u2019d like to have done and it was trying to find where people could possibly get to it. It\u2019s always difficult, the thing is that I didn\u2019t want to be doing this for ever and ever.<\/p>\n

Apart from Penny, have you had any feedback from the other former members of Crass about the Last Supper?<\/em><\/strong>
\nYeah, from Gee \u2013 she\u2019s sent me a message saying \u2018well done\u2019 and \u2018I see it\u2019s all going well\u2019 and that sort of stuff, Eve Libertine sent her love, but the others, I\u2019ve not heard anything from.<\/p>\n

Which brings us round to the remastering of Feeding of the Five Thousand<\/em> \u2013 Did you have much to do with that?<\/strong>
\nI wrote a bit for it, and I just gave it my full support, because I thought that it was well worth doing \u2013 the music needed updating and I think it\u2019s got a bit more oomph in it now and the artwork, I think is just great.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was very surprised by the cover…<\/strong>
\nI\u2019ll let you into a little secret \u2013 because all the albums we did are going to be re-released \u2013 that\u2019s the plan… so that when you\u2019ve got all of the Crassical Collection<\/em> as it\u2019s called, you put all the covers together and it forms the Crass symbol that used to be on Penny Rimbaud\u2019s bass drum. Originally it was going to be this shit brown colour, which looked awful \u2013 I went, \u2018No \u2013 It\u2019s got to be black and white.\u2019 I had to compromise and now it\u2019s a dirty grey [laughs].<\/p>\n

With Crass, I always felt slightly guilty about enjoying the music as much as I did \u2013 given that, by and large, it\u2019s role was as a vehicle to convey the lyrical content. Do you think that the primacy of the lyrics in those songs has served to obscure their impact as pieces of music?<\/strong>
\nYeah, I would absolutely agree with that, because I didn\u2019t realise until we started playing them again, just how intricate the music \u2013 if I can call it that \u2013 was. Certainly in the songs that Beki sings, they are incredible songs, and the band really enjoy playing those \u2013 I can see that in their faces. Things like \u2018Reality Whitewash\u2019, or even \u2018Mother Earth\u2019, it\u2019s such a frightening bit of music that a lot of it got obscured.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Are you doing \u2018Nagasaki Nightmare\u2019? I bet that\u2019d be hard to do.<\/strong>
\nNo, we tried that in the studio, but for some reason, it wouldn\u2019t play live.<\/p>\n

Parts of it are almost like gamelan in places…<\/strong>
\nYeah, and it gets very jazzy and all that sort of stuff, and Beki wasn\u2019t comfortable with doing it, and neither was the band. So I was like, \u2018OK then, leave it out, because I don\u2019t want any discomfort or anything.\u2019 But no, for some reason it just wouldn\u2019t have it \u2013 very strange \u2013 and we tried all different ways of doing it, but we just couldn\u2019t do it.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

You have a memoir, The Rest Is Propaganda<\/em>, due for publication in just over a week, could you tell us a little about how the book came together and what made you decide to write it?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019d been trying to write it for about twenty years, but I kept getting bogged down. Firstly, I always find it very hard to write about myself, then I got bogged down in things like; is this making too much of this? Or am I bigging myself up too much? And in the end I gave up. Then I met this guy called Steve Pottinger, \u2018Spot\u2019 as he\u2019s known, and he gave me a book of prose that he\u2019d written and his writing was very similar to the way that I write. So I just said to him, \u2018Would you be interested in ghost writing this book with me?\u2019 And he said, \u2018Yeah.\u2019 The way we did it was that he would basically interview me, and he would ask me questions about childhood and stuff which would then make me go off on a memory. He\u2019d just transcribe it all, email it to me, I\u2019d go through it, he\u2019d pick out the bits that he thought were best \u2013 and he was really good, because there were bits that I wanted to put in that would have been too boring \u2013 and he\u2019s done a fantastic job on it.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

What made you decide to sit down and begin the process?<\/strong>
\nI think really, I wanted to give the inside story on what I felt \u2013 my take on it \u2013 because for years, all through Crass and after Crass, I went to do Crass interviews, but I still had to \u2013 not tow the Crass party line \u2013 but I just wanted to give what my opinion of it all was and to let people know what I was up to before Crass and what I was up to after Crass and again, wanting to show the human side of it. I think that I was always the joker of the pack and I think that the public view was always this austere, serious thing.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Did you find that revisiting your past offered you a fresh perspective?<\/strong>
\nYes, it did. In a funny way it was a bit like a therapy session. Now what\u2019s really odd about it is that, obviously I was signing books at the gigs, and every so often the pages would flip open and there\u2019d be a photograph of my Mum, and I was suddenly like, \u2018Bloody hell! Everybody\u2019s going to know everything there is to know about me, including those personal family photographs.\u2019 Really, really weird feeling.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think it might make me feel tremendously vulnerable…<\/strong>
\nWell, yeah \u2013 but I think I\u2019m a bit used to that by now.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

What are your thoughts on some of the other books that have been written around the subject of Crass \u2013 Penny\u2019s memoir, the George Berger book, Ian Glasper\u2019s overview of the anarcho scene?<\/strong>
\nThe Ian Glasper ones, I flicked through. And I flick thorough them now and again just to sort of read, and I think they\u2019re well written. The George Berger one \u2013 I know certain people out of Crass weren\u2019t too impressed by it, but actually I thought that was a pretty good attempt and for anybody who didn\u2019t know who or what Crass were, I thought that gave a pretty good in-depth insight into the whole origins of it. I mean, there were bits that I didn\u2019t know about Penny Rimbaud in there.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Looking at some of the feedback that you have been getting on your Facebook pages, it must be interesting to see just how many people \u2013 myself included \u2013 have been profoundly influenced by Crass\u2019 ideas. Is this something that you can now look back on with a degree of satisfaction?<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s something I look back on, not with satisfaction… I\u2019m just knocked out by it. So many people had all these positive things to say _ I don\u2019t get a big head or anything, but it\u2019s really moving. What it brings to me is [to ask] why don\u2019t those members of Crass who have threatened to take us to court and who didn\u2019t want the re-releases to go ahead and still don\u2019t, why can\u2019t they just go out and meet people like I am, or read things that they\u2019re writing and then you\u2019ll see what Crass was about. What it really, really meant to people. Because what annoys me about certain ex-members of Crass is that they all pooh-pooh it, and it\u2019s like \u2018oh, well, you know, it was just a thing\u2019. No \u2013 it actually did change people\u2019s lives, including mine, and I feel really sort of quite precious about it.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

As one of those who visited Dial House back in the day, I was struck by how patient everyone was with us. At times, you must have felt like there was a never ending stream of well-intentioned, but naive people inviting themselves around. How did you cope with this, day in day out?<\/strong>
\nWe used to do it in rotation [laughs], I\u2019d go through and do an hour, or something like that and then someone else would come through and take over, but it certainly was an endless thing and I think when Crass finally finished, I think one of the things that went on for a little while was still that endless stream of people. I mean, I didn\u2019t mind it \u2013 that\u2019s why it was an open house and we were going out there putting ourselves out in public and the least you could do is give people time.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

You also suffered from a great deal of pernicious attention from the state, phone tapping and so forth \u2013this must have been an ongoing siege for you \u2013 how did you deal with that?<\/strong>
\nWe just assumed that\u2019s what it was, we were very careful when we spoke on the phone. When I used to walk home late at night, if a car came up the lane, I\u2019d jump in a hedge \u2013 just in case. I dunno why, just maybe being paranoid or whatever, but it did feel like big brother was really watching us.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

That would foster a siege mentality…<\/strong>
\nYeah, we knew… when the local bobby would come down for his weekly cup of tea, that he was looking under cushions discreetly and things like that. For me, I just thought this is just part of the job \u2013 what goes with it.<\/p>\n

My reading of much of the content of Crass\u2019 lyrics is that they wholly promoted the idea of the individual thinking for themselves \u2013 however, there was often an element at gigs who had assumed the role of fundamentalist followers of the band \u2013 was this something that you found problematic?<\/strong>
\nYeah, I got really disappointed and disheartened when we got really political and you had all these different anarchist factions and stuff. And I used to get really pissed off with people telling me how I should or shouldn\u2019t portray anarchism, or what I should or shouldn\u2019t say, or what I should or shouldn\u2019t read, or drink, or eat and all this sort of stuff. And there was quite a few times where [it went] \u2018Steve \u2013 are you a vegetarian?\u2019 \u2018Yeah.\u2019 \u2018Do you drink milk?\u2019 \u2018Yeah.\u2019 \u2018Bastard.\u2019 \u2018Ah right, OK.\u2019 \u2018Steve \u2013 you wearing leather\u2019 \u2018Yeah, I think so.\u2019 \u2018Bastard\u2019 \u2013 y\u2019know it\u2019s all this sort of stuff.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

I sometimes encountered groups of people who appeared to have grasped the wrong end of the stick, in the sense that they had almost codified their own mental counter-intuitive anarcho \u2018rulebook\u2019, packed with dos and don\u2019ts<\/strong>
\nI know… isn\u2019t it funny \u2013 you remember that anarchist centre that Crass were involved in down in Wapping? We\u2019d donated a load of money from \u2018Bloody Revolutions\u2019, I believe, to go towards it. I think they\u2019d bought a load of plastic chairs, or something like that. I went down there a couple of times and I just fucked off out of it, because again, that bloody \u2018rulebook\u2019 came out and they were sort of looking down their noses at me and almost dissing me because I\u2019d actually had the nerve to be in Crass and donate money to the anarchist centre.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

It became very cliquey and Balkanized…<\/strong>
\nI hated it, that\u2019s why I started telling sexist jokes, and all that sort of thing. Sod it. \u2018Steve… Coming down the anarchist centre?\u2019 \u2018No,\u2019 I used to go down the local pub and look at the barmaid\u2019s arse [laughs].
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Was there a feeling that Crass had, to an extent, raised an army that they actually didn\u2019t want?<\/strong>
\nI remember an enormous feeling of responsibility \u2013 we were taken aback by how seriously people took it. What made it difficult for us was that we knew that we were being scrutinized, and so when we wrote songs we had to make bloody sure that every word was defendable. Really, really odd \u2013 and it wasn\u2019t because of the press or anything like that, it was because of the fundamentalists, or the lunatic fringe \u2013 those anarchist types that would be waiting with baited breath to dive on us.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the core concepts that runs through Crass\u2019 lyrics is the idea of non-violent resistance to oppression \u2013 which is perhaps easier said than done when you\u2019re confronted by a mob of meatheads. However, right at the very end of Crass\u2019 time, on \u2018Don\u2019t Get Caught\u2019 the lyric, \u2018if we can\u2019t go round them then we\u2019ll have to go through\u2019 appears \u2013 was this indicative of the realisation that such passivity was not always ideal.<\/strong>
\nYeah, absolutely. I\u2019d been saying for years, \u2018Look \u2013 we should just get fucking baseball bats and do their heads in.\u2019 \u2018No, no, no…\u2019 you know. And I knew I was right \u2013 we should\u2019ve, and I\u2019ll still say that to this day. Pen agrees with me now, that right at the very beginning, we should have bashed those bastards and not one gig should have been ruined by meatheads. But, still, we were trying it [passive resistance] and, bless the audiences that came along, they did stand up to them, but a lot of people got hurt there as well and I\u2019d always remorse for that. But, if people say, \u2018Do you have a regret?\u2019 I\u2019m like, \u2018Yeah, we should have… I dunno… got shotguns or something\u2019 [laughs].
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Certainly, I know that Conflict could be inclined to meet violence on its own terms, and you subsequently hooked up with them after Crass split. Was that a strange time for you?<\/strong>
\nYeah, very \u2013 and I had to leave in the end. Part of the reason I was leaving was because Conflict had a rep and people did go to their gigs to sort of take them on, but also there were a couple of people involved in Conflict who used to use that as like a promotion thing. What used to upset me about it was that a lot of people who went to Conflict gigs and the only fight that they\u2019d seen had been a scrap in the local playground, or the only copper that they\u2019d seen had been the local bobby on a bike, and suddenly being involved in a full scale riot like what happened at Brixton…
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh, that went on for hours…<\/strong>
\nI know… and I felt really sorry for those kids \u2013 not being funny \u2013 who came from Norwich, or from Norfolk, or little country places \u2013 they must have been terrified, and I found that Conflict always courted that sort of disaster. In the end, I thought \u2018I can\u2019t really deal with this anymore\u2019, because at certain times when I\u2019d have to do an interview after the gig, certain behaviour would go on as I was doing the interview \u2013 and then I would have to justify that. I think looking back, it might have been a little bit of a mistake for me, but there you go.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

What did you think of the other groups who comprised the scene that sprung up around Crass?<\/strong>
\nMostly, I liked \u2018em! But by \u201883\/84, I was fed up with the whole bloody thing, but still doing it. I actually got tired of bands all dressed in raggerty black and singing about nuclear bombs and stuff.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

That was what made Rubella Ballet stand out…<\/strong>
\nThat\u2019s why I used to quite like going to their gigs. Then I found myself \u2013 and this is going to sound funny \u2013 but I was going out with a girl for a while and she introduced me to Michael Jackson\u2019s Off The Wall <\/em>album, which I sort of got into, and then a band called Imagination. And I really got into that soul\/funk stuff.<\/p>\n

It must have been rewarding to have helped so many groups get a start?<\/strong>
\nYeah, absolutely amazing \u2013 I think when you look back at the catalogue that Crass had, love it or hate it, we always tried to put out diverse things and even other labels were doing it as well. When you look back at that, you think \u2018bloody hell\u2019 \u2013 you go from Annie Anxiety, to the Mob, from Captain Sensible to the Epileptics, or Flux, the Cravats… all that kind of thing. Then, one day this horrible noise from America turned up called \u2018skate punk\u2019 and the whole movement took three steps backwards.<\/p>\n

How did you feel in 1984 when Crass finally dissolved? Did you have a sense that things had been taken as far as they could?<\/strong>
\nYeah, really \u2013 really truly \u2013 because, I think secretly, every one of us involved in that band were thinking, \u2018how long can we do this for?\u2019 And I think if it hadn\u2019t had been Andy Palmer being the first one to say, \u2018I want to leave the band now\u2019, a couple of weeks later it would have been either me, or Eve Libertine, or someone would have done it, and that\u2019s why when Andy Palmer said \u2018I want to pack it in\u2019, there was the usual chorus of \u2018Why\u2019 and \u2018What a shame\u2019, but a couple of miles down the road, I think it was me and Eve Libertine that said, \u2018Well, actually Andy, if you hadn\u2019t had said it first, I was thinking of jacking it in and all, mate.\u2019 I think we had outstayed our welcome a little bit.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

There was a sense of predetermination about the band splitting in 1984 \u2013 with the record numbers counting down to 1984 and I think someone stated that the band would dissolve that year.<\/strong>
\nYeah, but I don\u2019t remember that you see, and that\u2019s where I disagree with Penny Rimbaud, because he said recently in interviews that there was a definite countdown \u2013 I don\u2019t remember it being like that. All we used that 1984 thing for was just as a countdown to 1984. I remember saying to him, \u2018What are we going to do if the band\u2019s still going when we go past 1984?\u2019
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

In terms of punk\u2019s connection to anarchism, my feeling is that the initial wave of 1976 bands used the idea of anarchy as little more than a fashion accessory, but this paved the way for a far more considered reading of the ideology, in harder times, by bands under the Crass umbrella. Do you think this is fair comment?<\/strong>
\nYeah, I think that\u2019s absolutely right. I think that with \u2018I am an anti-Christ\/I am an anarchist\u2019, I\u2019d never heard the word before and I had to ask Penny Rimbaud what it meant. The funny thing is, I think that Crass could be accused of the same thing, because I don\u2019t think that we were particularly anarchist, but because we were being courted by the left wing \u2013 by the SWP, and by the NF at that time, people were saying, \u2018Well, you dress in black and you wear sort of Nazi-looking things\u2019 and we thought that the only way that we could be unpolitical was to be anarchists, and put an \u2018A\u2019 in a circle and it sort of built up from there, really. It used to get a bit embarrassing at times … well, no, not embarrassing \u2013 I used to enjoy it; again, the anarchists down at Wapping at the Anarchy Centre, \u2018have you read Bakunin?\u2019 and all that, \u2018No, I haven\u2019t.\u2019 \u2018What books do you read?\u2019 \u2018Oh, you know, The Beano and Tintin\u2019 [laughs]. It\u2019d really do their heads in!
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Did I read that you\u2019ve joined a lifeboat rescue team?<\/strong>
\nYes.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

How are you finding that?<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s going very well, we\u2019re independent \u2013 we\u2019re not part of the RNLI \u2013 we depend entirely on donations, actually I\u2019ve got training this evening and it\u2019s pretty calm out there, so we might be out on the sea tonight. Every Thursday and every Sunday, we\u2019re out on the sea training.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

So have you always been a good swimmer?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019ve been a pretty good swimmer, the thing is that we wear a thing called a \u2018dry suit\u2019 and we wear a life jacket with that, so it\u2019s pretty impossible to sink \u2013 so it\u2019s not really necessary, although it does help.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a way, I think that\u2019s very much in keeping with the spirit of Crass…<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s very odd \u2013 If you\u2019d have said to me ten years ago, \u2018Steve, in ten years time you\u2019ll be out in the middle of the North Sea and that\u2019ll be in the middle of the night on a lifeboat looking for someone\u2019 I wouldn\u2019t have believed you, but here I am doing it and sometimes it is really terrifying.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s back in the realm of \u2018making a difference\u2019…<\/strong>
\nYeah, it\u2019s funny how it leads on, isn\u2019t it? Of all the things I end up doing! I could be working in a bakers, or in a brewery, or something like that, but no.<\/p>\n

Steve\u2019s blog\/book details: \u00a0http:\/\/steveignorant.co.uk\/<\/a>
\nSteve on Facebook: \u00a0http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/home.php?sk=lf#!\/ignorant.steve<\/a>
\n\u00a9 Dick Porter, 2010<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For Crass in general, and former frontman Steve Ignorant in particular, it\u2019s been all go just recently. Aside from the re-mastering of the band\u2019s landmark 1978 album Feeding of The Five Thousand, Steve had been on tour across the UK performing Crass\u2019 songs for a final time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1606,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,73],"tags":[216,151,121,215],"series":[],"class_list":["post-1600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-interviews","tag-crass","tag-dick-porter","tag-eyeplug","tag-steve-ignorant"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1600"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=1600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}